Two Islands

President Francois Mitterrand is making an official visit to Martinique and Guadeloupe. Unemployment is a problem on the two islands and anti-French violence in Guadeloupe has taken the lives of eight people. In interviews with reporters last week Mitterrand said he would fight political violence on the islands but did not rule out changes in the status of the two territories. The economies of Martinique and Guadeloupe are heavily dependent on French funding.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has placed the island of Vieques -- once a warfare-training ground for the U.S. Navy -- on its National Priorities List of toxic sites slated for cleanup. A section of the island, which lies seven miles east of the island of Puerto Rico, has been contaminated by more than 50 years of bombings and other training operations carried out by the U.S. military, said Kathleen C. Callahan, the EPA's acting regional administrator.

ISLANDS FOR SALE. Two islands off Scotland's west coast are for sale, and only the rich need apply. The 3,400-acre island of Gigha is expected to fetch between $3.4 million and $5 million, according to a real estate agent. Offers for 600-acre Holy Island are to begin at $1.6 million, the real estate agent said. On Gigha island, which has a population of 160, are rhododendron and exotic shrub gardens. Holy Island is home to rare animals and plants.

KEY WEST -- The tacky tourist T-shirt shops on Duval Street carry trendy cigar-box purses, old watering holes sport a "mojito madness hour," and the quaint shop Cuba! Cuba! sells arts and crafts by Cuban artists and the kind of nostalgic memorabilia seen only in Cuba-obsessed Miami. On Mallory Square, at the traditional sunset celebration, Antonio Rodriguez, a Cuban artist who came to Key West as a child on the 1980 Mariel boatlift, sells his nostalgic watercolors of chickens and tropical fruits -- anon, papaya, coconuts -- as a small salsa band plays Top 40 salsa hits nearby at Don Pepe's patio bar. Cayo Hueso (Bone Key)

How would you like to be on The Steve Harvey Show when the WB sitcom tapes at Universal Studios this week? The grand-prize winner and a guest in our sweepstakes will be extras on the show during one of the tapings, which are scheduled for Wednesday through Friday. The grand-prize winner also will have his or her photo taken with cast members, receive an autographed photo of the cast and get two Islands of Adventure passes. Two runners-up will each meet the cast on Tuesday and each may bring one guest.

Marco Polo built an extraordinary reputation for himself in his own time, but not as the world's greatest explorer -- those who knew anything at all about him regarded him as the world's greatest liar.Even as the sky is blue, so is the air all around us blue. Just not blue enough to look blue close up. If you discuss this with your family physicist, you'll hear something about blue having the shortest wave lengths of all the visible rays.There's no such thing as ''a healthy tan,'' the skin doctors now say. All tanning damages skin.

The governors of New York and New Jersey ended a feud between their states Monday when they agreed to share taxes from Liberty and Ellis islands to benefit the homeless.In a ceremony at Battery Park in Manhattan with the two islands in the background, New York Gov. Marios Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean signed a ''memo of agreement'' to introduce identical bills in their Legislatures to split the tax revenue and earmark it for needy people in the two states.Kean said the revenue from the two national landmarks could be as much as $5 million a year.

A student who lived on one Hawaiian island but went to school on another earned nearly 100,000 frequent flier miles along with her degree. Deborah Lee-Daniells shuttled three times a week for 2 1/2 years from her home on Maui to classes at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, on Oahu, a 30-minute flight away. She graduated Sunday with a master's degree in business administration. The two islands are 98 miles apart, but Delta Air Lines awarded Lee-Daniells 1,000 frequent-flier miles for each flight.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has placed the island of Vieques -- once a warfare-training ground for the U.S. Navy -- on its National Priorities List of toxic sites slated for cleanup. A section of the island, which lies seven miles east of the island of Puerto Rico, has been contaminated by more than 50 years of bombings and other training operations carried out by the U.S. military, said Kathleen C. Callahan, the EPA's acting regional administrator.

WHEN WAS the last time that you saw a bald eagle in its natural habitat? Or are you one of the many who have never seen one outside of a zoo or theme park?Well then, you are at least lucky to now live in the state of Florida, where the second largest population of American bald eagles live. Look up once in a while. As you travel the byways and highways of Florida, you may see the nest of these birds atop the high power poles or trees along the route or just sitting on the ground alongside a farm pond.

Sometimes it pays to be a senior citizen. Boston-based Saga Holidays, which specializes in vacations for 50-and-older travelers, is offering two weeks for the price of one aboard the sybaritic, four-masted Star Clipper. Here's the deal. You pay for the first week's cruise on the 170-passenger vessel through the Grenadine Islands and get the second week through the Windward Islands for free. You pay $155 for port taxes for the additional week. Prices start at $2,095 per person, double occupancy.

How would you like to be on The Steve Harvey Show when the WB sitcom tapes at Universal Studios this week? The grand-prize winner and a guest in our sweepstakes will be extras on the show during one of the tapings, which are scheduled for Wednesday through Friday. The grand-prize winner also will have his or her photo taken with cast members, receive an autographed photo of the cast and get two Islands of Adventure passes. Two runners-up will each meet the cast on Tuesday and each may bring one guest.

You don't really think of cruise lines as being in the real-estate business, but a number of them have bought and developed uninhabited bits of the Bahamas that offer passengers seclusion and a day at a beautiful beach. Think Gilligan's Island, minus the shipwreck.These ``private islands,'' replete with lush lagoons, palm trees and sugar-sand shorelines, let passengers savor sun, sand and water sports at a leisurely tempo. A sybaritic day on any one of them typically garners an outdoor barbecue under thatched-roof pavilions.

Cruise passengers in T-shirts and shorts filled the streets. They walked the main thoroughfare and explored the narrow stone alleys decked with flowers. They bought their watches and their bottles of rum. Everything was as it should be in the middle of the week in the middle of a winter Caribbean cruise. Except for the Palm Passage still undergoing renovation after Hurricane Marilyn, downtown looked neat and healed.Yet up on Government Hill, where few tourists ventured, workmen tight-rope walked along the skeletons of new roofs.

Bali Scene No. 1: A warm hill-country evening at a crumbling red stone Hindu temple in Payangan.With their faces painted white, three young girls - dressed in bright red-and-gold traditional gowns - whirl through the ancient legong kraton dance to the hypnotic music of a gamelan band.Dozens of villagers, from babies to grandmothers, watch from a wall surrounding the temple. Across the street, a wood carver closes his workshop, gently lifting statues of Shiva and Vishnu behind the door, which he doesn't bother to lock.

Our tiny plane banks above the reef-fringed Caribbean waters of Belize. Suddenly, I want this bird to go down. To bust an engine or run out of gas or something.Water of incredible color and clarity is just below our Skybird Airlines four-seater. And I want to be in it. To play among the coral and tropical fish. To walk through the warm shallows onto palm-shaded islands and atolls - some no larger than a tennis court.Belize's reef is the second largest in the world, after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Sometimes it pays to be a senior citizen. Boston-based Saga Holidays, which specializes in vacations for 50-and-older travelers, is offering two weeks for the price of one aboard the sybaritic, four-masted Star Clipper. Here's the deal. You pay for the first week's cruise on the 170-passenger vessel through the Grenadine Islands and get the second week through the Windward Islands for free. You pay $155 for port taxes for the additional week. Prices start at $2,095 per person, double occupancy.

Cruise passengers in T-shirts and shorts filled the streets. They walked the main thoroughfare and explored the narrow stone alleys decked with flowers. They bought their watches and their bottles of rum. Everything was as it should be in the middle of the week in the middle of a winter Caribbean cruise. Except for the Palm Passage still undergoing renovation after Hurricane Marilyn, downtown looked neat and healed.Yet up on Government Hill, where few tourists ventured, workmen tight-rope walked along the skeletons of new roofs.

A student who lived on one Hawaiian island but went to school on another earned nearly 100,000 frequent flier miles along with her degree. Deborah Lee-Daniells shuttled three times a week for 2 1/2 years from her home on Maui to classes at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, on Oahu, a 30-minute flight away. She graduated Sunday with a master's degree in business administration. The two islands are 98 miles apart, but Delta Air Lines awarded Lee-Daniells 1,000 frequent-flier miles for each flight.

Osceola County said yes to developers wanting to bulldoze citrus trees and transform Paradise Island into an exclusive $25 million subdivision.But the state is saying no, at least for now.The Florida Department of Community Affairs has told the county that developing the 95-acre island in the middle of Lake Tohopekaliga is ''inappropriate'' because it could harm the lake.And even though the county approved the project in December, the agency has ordered a new review, this time by the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council.